A/N: sorry there's been no updates on this in a week, but I have been stupidly busy. Also, I'm feeling a little uninspired with this one, I'm not really sure where it should go and I'm generally just feeling a bit stuck with it all! This chapter is super short but hopefully it's better than nothing and let's hope I can figure out some more chapters for you soon!

PS: HUGE thank you to LordofKavaka who sent me a brilliant cover image for this story :)

"Kate?" Charlie called, suddenly spotting her sister still in the bar. "I thought you and Castle were going home?"

"We were," Kate said through gritted teeth. "Except just as we were about to leave, Espo informed us that someone broke into my apartment. Your apartment. Well, you know." She should be more concerned about who was breaking into her apartment and why but seriously, couldn't they have waited until tomorrow or something? She just wanted to spend the night in bed with Castle, was that really too much to ask?

"Oh god..why?"

"No idea," Kate replied. "Espo said uniform are checking it out now. Given that I'm not actually a cop anymore they shouldn't let me in until all the evidence is collected but Ryan is trying to pull a few strings, let me see what's missing, see if we can figure out who it was and what they wanted." She had a pretty good idea, she highly doubted Maddox would give up just because both Charlie and Kate had got away, and even if he wanted to, whoever he was working for probably would let him.

"Right..well, I'll come with you, check if any of my stuff is missing.." Kate was about to argue but Charlie had a point, the both of them knew the apartment best and would quickly be able to determine what the intruder had been looking for.

"Who do you think it is?" Castle asked her quietly once Charlie had gone back to Ethan to explain what was going on. Both Esposito and Ryan were still on their phones, trying to get the boys to let Beckett back into her apartment and help with the investigation. The thing was, her resignation and defiance of Captain Gates had become the talk of the precinct over the past couple of weeks, and anyone who had heard of Victoria 'Iron' Gates knew better than to try and go behind her back.

"I'll give you three guesses," Kate muttered drily. "Maddox and whoever he's working for won't have been happy that Charlie and I both got away, this is their reminder that they're still there and they're still watching. They're always watching." She glanced around the room, as if her own comment about being watched had her paranoid.

Charlie and Ethan rejoined them just as Ryan was given the all clear for Beckett to go into the apartment. Luckily, Beckett's old apartment was only a few blocks away from The Old Haunt so Kate, Charlie, Ethan and Castle walked over there quickly, closely followed by Esposito and Ryan, who were waiting to know if anything was missing so they could begin their search into who had broken in.

"How did you know there had been a break in?" Ethan asked.

"Next door neighbour saw someone looking suspicious down in the lobby when she got home, won't give a description though, says she'd too worried he might come back for her. When she got back up to her apartment, she noticed the door to Beckett's apartment had been tampered with and after knocking to see if anyone was home, she called the police."

Ryan dashed ahead a little when they arrived, talking to the uniform on the door. He glanced over Ryan's shoulder before seeing Beckett and nodding slightly, giving them the all clear to go up.

"Don't touch anything, don't move anything. If something looks odd or out of place, call CSU over to photograph it and sweep it for fingerprints," Beckett instructed as they climbed the stairs to her old apartment. Espo and Ryan had stayed downstairs, but Ethan and Castle were with her and Charlie.

"You do know you're not a cop anymore, right?" Charlie teased. "We know, Kate. You can learn a lot from CSI New York, you know?"

Kate rolled her eyes, Charlie knew how inaccurate those shows could be. She was surprised that they'd been allowed in so easily actually, especially after her public resignation from the force, but the reason for that became clear as they rounded the corner to the apartment.

"Nice to see you again, Detective Beckett."

"Good to see you too, Tom," Kate replied, shaking his hand. She had to suppress a grin when she felt Castle stiffen beside her, he really was adorable when he was jealous.

"You didn't tell me Schlemming was here," he hissed to her as they followed Demming into the apartment.

"I didn't know," Kate shrugged, but now that she thought about it, it was obvious that he would be.

"Wait, I know that name," Charlie piped up from behind them. "He's in the Nikki Heat books, who is he?"

"Your sisters ex boyfriend," Castle explained stonily to another hidden grin from his girlfriend.

"Detective Demming from robbery," Kate whispered to Charlie. "We worked with him a few years back."

"Never did like him," Castle muttered and Kate elbowed him in the ribs.

"Do you know how cute you are when you're jealous?" She asked in a hushed voice.

"I..what? No..I'm.." Castle spluttered.

"You don't have to pretend, Castle, I know you."

"Well, can you blame me? We were about to go home for a night where neither of us were planning on sleeping and instead we're here with one of your exes!"

"Why don't you invite Gina over, make it even? Or Meredith. Or Kyra. Or I'm sure there's plenty of numbers for bimbos and groupies on your phone you could call," Kate pointed out, before heading off to see what the officers had found from the break in.

"Cat got your tongue, Castle?" Charlie grinned. "Kate is way too good at that."

"Tell me about it," Castle muttered, before following his girlfriend. He needed to make sure Schlemming didn't put the moves on Kate again.

Half an hour later and it was clear nothing had been taken. Nothing they could notice straight away, anyway.

"Anything gone from your room?" Kate asked Charlie as she met her back in the living room.

"Nope," Charlie confirmed. "Looks exactly the same as I left it. Maybe it was just the wrong apartment or something? He got in here and realised he needed to be up a floor?"

"Mm, maybe.." Kate answered non-commitedly. It was a possibility, of course, but she didn't think so. It was too much of a coincidence that things had been quiet on the Maddox front since the day he'd got away again, she was convinced this was him. But if he hadn't stolen anything, what was he doing here?

A/N: thoughts appreciated as always.

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